As soon as I saw the picture in July, I instantly understood why all the news editors, bloggers and media outlets chose to feature it. And I knew exactly what was going to happen next.

The photo in question showed Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who happens to be a pretty 22-year-old woman, in addition to being a member of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot. She's being arrested, and the sunlight catches the shine on her dark brown hair (not to mention the clingy nature of her blue T-shirt) as she pumps her fist in the air, black power style, and purses her lips.

Tolokonnikova is an experienced radical activist, a wife and a mother, but none of that is relevant in the picture of her that went viral: Instead she is the embodiment of the young, sexy revolutionary, an ideal rather than a person, and one that's lent glamour to everyone from Joan of Arc to Che Guevara.

The iconography worked. Just as I thought, Pussy Riot became a Cause in a matter of days, both in the entertainment industry and human rights community. Everyone from Amnesty International to Madonna condemned the arrest and sham trial of three of the group's members. In cities as far-flung as New York, Toronto and Berlin, people have dressed up in bright dresses like the ones that Pussy Riot performs in and gone to "solidarity" protests.

And, of course, our dear San Francisco - never a town to miss a chance to be outraged about something - joined in with rallies at the Russian Consulate and in Justin Herman Plaza.

It took me some time to understand why all of this made me feel so uncomfortable. There were so many flash points about it that I support - free speech, democracy, rock 'n' roll. I liked the idea that the stars of the story were young women, even if many of their stunts were silly. (Did they really have to resort to tiresome art-student cliches like hosting orgies in museums or accessorizing their outfits with bright balaclavas?) And I certainly have no love for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose slowly closing iron fist was the target of Pussy Riot's protests.

But in fact it was Putin who helped me understand why I found the whole Protest-for-Pussy-Riot business so upsetting. I saw him on television, laughing off a question about Pussy Riot with a joke about orgies. He actually seemed to relish all the cheap international outrage, and why not? While the international community is jumping up and down about Pussy Riot, he can turn his attention to crushing Chechen insurgents, or to threatening the thousands of people who take to the streets month after month in Moscow and St. Petersburg to protest his rule.

Let them get upset about a few pretty girls with guitars, he seemed to be saying.

And of course he's right - and it's shameful. It's shameful that we really are this easily distracted by cool pictures and cheap gimmicks. We really are this shallow about the difficult and dangerous work of protest.

Probably no one rallying for Pussy Riot has heard of Gennady Gudkov, an opposition leader whom Putin had just ejected from Parliament this week. No one cares about protest leader Alexei Navalny, who has been charged with "crimes" that carry a 10-year sentence. There will be no solidarity protests with the thousands who keep gathering in Pushkin Square in Moscow, despite the threat of jail time, to demand the right to have a say in their own country.

That's because these people aren't young or sexy enough, or perhaps they just didn't take the right picture. It's not enough to go to jail, to take to the streets, to lose your livelihood or even your life in the service of a greater cause. To earn international attention, you'd better have the right image.

I'd like to see these women freed from jail. I'd like to see them back on the streets of Moscow, playing new songs about Putin and about what he's done to their country.

But what I'd like even more is to see that all of those people who have rallied for Pussy Riot - all of those people who have made a big fuss about how cool these girls are for singing a few songs about freedom - would take to the streets for the ordinary people of Russia, too.